Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire. (Photo from Al Jazeera)
The last week has brought two good and very interesting series of reports about Africa, one on National Public Radio, and the other on Al Jazeera.
In the five part NPR series broadcast last week, reporter Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports on a barge journey along the Congo River, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s main highway. (Tragically, two similar barges sank in Congo over this past weekend, killing 70 people.)
In the series Africa… States of Independence, Al Jazeera is this month broadcasting a series of reports looking back on the 50 years since most African countries attained their independence. We will watch the first part of this series, The Scramble for Africa, in class. I encourage you to read, watch, or listen to the others yourself.
Friday’s New York Times carried this interesting and very disturbing report about events in the eastern part of the DRC in the wake of the Rwandan genocide. According to the Times, a new United Nations report presents evidence that Rwandan soldiers, acting with Congolese rebel forces, were responsible for the massacre of Hutu refugees in the DRC.
The article is well worth reading, particularly since we will be discussing Congo later in the semester.
DNR
Welcome to the course – and the website – Geog 305: Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa.
This is the site where you will be able to find out much of what you need to know about the course, including information on topics such as exams, assignments, and quizzes. More importantly, I hope that this site will also serve as a forum for discussion on topics related to the subjects we cover (and perhaps some that we don’t) in class.
Donald N. Rallis
Associate Professor
I have just read this interesting article in the New York Times about the emergence of a new hub in the international drug trade: West Africa. Countries like Guinea Bissau apparently offer international drug cartels a combination of poverty, corruptible governments, and proximity to European markets.
Thursday November 19
Angela Francis, Sara Frech, and Brianna Mears. The Concentration of HIV/AIDS in Southern sub-Saharan Africa: An Examination of Contributing Factors
Tuesday December 1
Kristin Cutler and Meredith Greenwell. Zimbabwe: One of Africa’s Leading Examples of What Could Have Been and What Should Never Be
Samer Bahhur, Nate Finney and Nicholas Southwell. Somalia’s Piracy Problem
Rebecca Briggs, Megan Falkenberry, Ashely Greene, and Mary Pawlina. Sierra Leone: The Civil War and its Aftermath.
David Moore, Brian McGrath, Colin McGlynn and Kyle Dratwa . Small Arms and Light Weapons: Roots of Proliferation in West Africa
Thursday December 3
Colin Hess and Stephanie Jones The Contemporary Genocide in Sudan
Lee Gilliam, Michael Morgan, and Molly Rose. A Current Look at the Internet in Africa
Rick Ware, Michelle Woody and Andrea Nelson. African Clean Water Crisis.
Next week PRISM (People for the Rights of Individuals in Sexual Minorities), SAVE (Student Anti-Violence Educators), Model United Nations, Jewish Student Association, Young Democrats, College Republicans, STAND (an anti-genocide student collation) and the James Farmer Multicultural Center will sponsor a Human Rights Film Festival. The film on Monday November 16th should be of particular interest to students in this class.
The film festival is Monday, Nov. 16th – 19th. All movies begin at 6 pm. and are in Lee Hall room 411.
- Monday Nov. 16th: “My Neighbor, My Killer” A movie about the after effects of the Rwandan genocide. Run time: 80 mins.
- Tuesday Nov. 17th: “Afghan Star” A movie about a young girl risking her life to sing in Afghanistan. Run time: 87 mins.
- Wednesday Nov. 18th “Look into my Eyes” A movie about antisemitism in a modern world. Run time: 80 mins.
- Thursday Nov. 19th “Youth Producing Change” Run time: 62 mins. A movie about youth producing change, an empowering film.
In class on Tuesday, we watched the film Black Gold, a film which, according to the New York Times, tells an “unresolved modern version of the age-old David and Goliath story.” David in this case are small Ethiopian coffee farmers, and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-op Union, representing growers in southern Ethiopia, and the Goliath consists of the major multinational corporations that dominate the international coffee business.
The film highlights some of the inequalities in global trade, and urges consumers to support the notion of fair trade, and products which are designated as Fairtrade.
Hey! I’m worried!
The main reason that decided to offer you a “rolling final exam” was to give you the chance to write your exam essays early, while the topics covered in the questions are still fresh in your mind. But I notice from Blackboard that not many members of the class have downloaded the exam questions, and I notice too that nobody has yet submitted an exam essay. How do I tell you all politely that you are missing a great opportunity!!
UPDATE: Requests, anyone? If there is a topic from the course that you would like to write about, but don’t see on the exam, please feel free to make suggestions to me. Just send the question to me and, if I like it, I will add it to the exam!
This article was published today in the New York Times, reporting on the need to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to meet the needs of a growing global population. It’s closely related to our class discussion last Tuesday – read it!
After Fall Break we will turn our attention to an examination of population issues in the Sub-Saharan African context. As a background to this discussion (particularly for those who have not taken World Regional Geography or Introductory Human Geography) I think it would be useful to discuss some basic ideas in demography and population geography. To this end, on Thursday October 15 we will watch the first part of a PBS Nova program called World in the Balance. The program examines the so-called ‘population paradox,’ the marked contrast between the rapidly growing populations of parts of the developing world, and the stable or declining populations of parts of the developed world. Although this documentary deals only in part with Africa, it provides useful global context for our discussions.
On Tuesday October 20, we will talk more specifically about Africa. Our discussion will focus on some of the issues you read about in the text, and we will also look at some African population data from the International Database of the US Census Bureau. If you are not familiar with this (recently updated) site, I suggest you take a look at it. (The site allows you to select any country in the world, and examine its historic and projected future populations, as well as information on birth rates, death rates, infant and child mortality rates, and other factors contributing to population change.
Please also be sure to read the article The Baby Bonanza, from The Economist (I have also posted a pdf copy of the article on Blackboard.)
